REDCAN is the UK's alliance of regional eating disorder charities

Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses that affect your thoughts and behaviours around food and eating. Eating disorders can have physical consequences, and sometimes lead to very serious physical illness.

The hopeful news is that recovery is not just possible but common. We often only hear about eating disorders that have become physically dangerous. But eating disorders show up earlier: for example, when some people feel distress around food, eating, weight, or shape. Or it can be when the ways people eat or exercise stop them from taking part in everyday activities.

The sorts of behaviour and thoughts in an eating disorder could include: restricting food; eating large amounts of food without being able to stop; intentionally being sick or using laxatives to get rid of food; an uncontrollable need to exercise; not being able to stop thinking about or checking body or weight.

Some eating disorders are linked with the sensory ways particular foods taste or feel to people, or fears of being sick. Others focus on weight or body image. People with eating disorders are often ashamed of these thoughts and behaviour. This is not a surprise as eating disorders are often stigmatised and misrepresented in the UK, like many mental illnesses. Having an eating disorder is never your fault.

In short, really common. It is difficult to estimate how many people in the UK have an eating disorder, but BEAT's most recent figures suggest around 1.25-3.4 million people. At the very least, that's more than one in every seventy people. Another study in 2023 found more than one in five children and adolescents in England showed some form of disordered eating, jumping to nearly one in three adults.

It is thought that binge eating disorder (BED) is the most common eating disorder, followed by 'other specified feeding and eating disorder' (OSFED) and bulimia. Anorexia is estimated to affect fewer than one in ten people with eating disorders. Further data is needed on how many people have avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID).

While adolescence is the most common time that eating disorders begin, they can develop earlier and later. Girls and women form the large majority of those who experience an eating disorder, but boys and men also experience them, making up around one in five of all affected.

We'd like to see more research about the experiences of those who might be at particular risk: people living on low to middle incomes; people from minoritised ethnic communities; lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people; disabled people; neurodivergent people; older people; people who migrated to the UK.

Eating disorders happen for lots of reasons. Genetics often plays a major role. Eating disorders may emerge during big changes in people's lives or when they are dealing with difficult emotions. Experiencing trauma can be a factor.

More broadly, diet and exercise culture is everywhere in modern life, making people feel bad about themselves and their bodies, or providing poor nutritional guidance. Experiencing inequalities, discrimination and prejudice may contribute. For people with eating disorders that have a focus on weight or shape, restricting food can disrupt key metabolic processes and alter brain chemistry. And people are beginning to learn more about the role of neurodivergence in eating disorders. The particular factors, and how they combine, are different for each person.

Experience of an eating disorder will differ from one person to the next, so REDCAN agencies take a person-centred approach to treatment. The type, frequency and combination of talking therapies, peer and family groups, guided resources, nutritional support and more varies, depending on each person and their individual circumstances. Some treatments may work best for particular eating disorders. What is needed at one stage often changes over time. Early intervention work tends to look different to supporting someone who has been discharged from NHS care. Other factors in people's lives play a key part in planning for eating disorder recovery, and our locally-based agencies take these into account: other physical and mental health conditions; disability and neurodivergence; social and economic injustice and discrimination; home and local environments; families, work and school; culture and community. In addition, the staff members at REDCAN agencies have a valuable mix of lived and professional experience of eating disorders, with deep insight into and knowledge of recovery.

At the moment, the UK is seeing rising levels of eating disorders, but needs are not being met. More people are seeking support with more complexity than ever before. The current system is straining and failing to meet this demand, especially for people without without a formal diagnosis or people who face social injustice or marginalisation. We know that if eating disorders are not treated early, recovery typically takes longer, disorders become more serious and treatment becomes more difficult. Longer and severe eating disorders also cost the NHS much more.

That's why we want to see services like ours commissioned across the UK, with stable funding to work on prevention and early intervention. Despite our critical role and proven impact, REDCAN agencies face uncertain funding. Where we are commissioned and form part of well-planned local NHS clinical pathways, we reduce pressure on the NHS, but our services can remain vulnerable due to short term and inconsistent contracts.

There is a postcode lottery for treatment. We see significant gaps across the country where agencies are not commissioned to offer free or low cost, community based support for people who do not meet the often restricted clinical thresholds for NHS services. Treatment by private providers is not affordable for the majority of people with an eating disorder. In some areas, REDCAN agencies work alongside the NHS to support a wider range of eating disorders than is currently provided by statutory services.

Cultural stereotypes and systemic barriers mean many people — particularly those from global majority, neurodivergent, disabled, LGBTQ+, less financially well-resourced or older groups — are overlooked and underserved. We need to make sure as a sector that no-one misses out on the right eating disorder support by raising awareness about all the eating disorders and all the diverse people who experience them. In other countries, such as Australia, a national eating disorder strategy has been launched, joining the dots on treatment and prevention for this set of very serious mental and physical illnesses. Eating disorders there are 'everyone's business' and we can do the same here. To do this, we need much more systematic and innovative research and data on eating disorders.